


Her Garden of Small Miracles

by AltUniverseWash



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate History, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Human, Battlefield, Developing Relationship, Eventual Romance, F/F, Fictional History, Humanstuck, Italy, Kissing, Lesbian Character, Military Backstory, Post-Battle, Post-War, Slow Romance, Tenderness, War, musketeer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:21:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27149342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AltUniverseWash/pseuds/AltUniverseWash
Summary: The year is 1721. The forces of Her Imperious Condescension sweep across northern Europe, tearing a bloody swath and leaving destruction in their wake. Moorish musketeer Aradia de Megido is caught up in the conflict as a soldier standing up against the Empire. It ends poorly.Months later, Aradia has found her way to a new life in southern Italy. Leaving the blood-soaked past behind her, no longer defined by the violence she once knew. As she goes through her days, she finds herself increasingly intrigued by the tall, dark-haired woman who spends her days reading in her garden.
Relationships: Kanaya Maryam/Aradia Megido
Comments: 4
Kudos: 4





	1. Original work

**Author's Note:**

> TW: This work contains references to battlefield violence, including some descriptions of injuries and dead bodies. There is a blood-splatter effect on several pages.
> 
> This work contains an accessible text version as the second chapter.
> 
> This piece was originally written for the [Humanstuck Zine](https://twitter.com/humanstuckzine) \- please check out the other pieces!
> 
> [Follow me on Twitter](https://twitter.com/AltUniverseWash) for more Homestuck content!

  



	2. Accessible Text

The woman was in the garden again, of course – it was her custom to read there every afternoon when the light grew dim enough to provide some comfort in the shade, yet not so dim as to obscure her vision. The scent of jasmine was heavy in the air and the shadows were growing long already. Soon, it would be night and she would linger a while before she finally retired for the evening, back into the villa on the hill where she made her home.

“How heavy do I journey on the way... when what I seek, my weary travel’s end.”

She paused and placed a long finger on the page of the book laid out in her graceful lap. Long, graceful fingers on long, graceful arms that led to a tall frame. Deep, olive skin and raven’s wing-black hair that framed a face that belonged on one of Michaelangelo’s old statues! Eyes that were always set with a look of determination. An aquiline nose that gave her an air of distinction.

Her name was Kanaya Maryam, and Aradia de Megido was in love with her.

“I can see you there, you know. Always at the edge of the garden – for a week now. Am I that fascinating? Or are you simply a fan of the Bard? I know he’s a bit stuffy now, but I still appreciate the measure of his words.”

Aradia swallowed hard, unsure of how to answer.

“Come now – sally forth and all that. What is it you’re afraid of? I have no ill intention toward you.”

She stepped forward, brushing aside the hedge she’d been half-concealed behind. Her face was flushed deep with embarrassment as she approached – she hadn’t expected to be seen during her admittedly voyeuristic passtime.

“What is your name?” Kanaya asked, her voice pleasantly warm, but with a slight trace of a rasp to it.

“Aradia de Megido, Signora. And you are Lady Kanaya Maryam. My apologies – I was… passing by and couldn’t help but overhear.”

Kanaya laughed – it was a sound as delightful as anything Aradia had been expecting. “ _Lady?!_ Signorina, you flatter me too much. I tend this villa and its grounds only while my sisters and brothers are away.” She closed the book in her lap.

“And you… you have come far for someone who speaks with such an accent.”

Aradia stopped in her tracks and looked down – her skin was two shades darker than Kanaya’s. Not wholly unusual in the southern region of Italy, but when combined with her accent it would give her away.

“You’re right. I was born in Spain.” Aradia felt herself relax a little. “I was… I traveled for a time north of here.”

“Spain?” Kanaya asked. “Oh! You are a Moor, like Othello! Although…” her face fell a bit. “I would hope your story is less filled with heartbreak and tragedy.”

Aradia shrugged. “Close enough. Othello fought with the Venetians… I did too, for a time.” She smiled at Kanaya, who beamed back – and the garden seemed to light up in spite of the quickly encroaching shadows.

“Fought? You were a soldier? What was _that_ like?” Kanaya was leaning forward, her book almost dropping to the ground.

But Aradia didn’t want to answer her – she wanted to look away. And then she wanted to be anywhere else – anywhere but in this garden in the company of this beautiful woman she was smitten by.

“It was… difficult.”

* * *

The horse was definitely dead – the rider, she was less sure about. He’d been groaning at first, trying desperately to stand in the thick mud that’d been churned up after the morning’s rain. Then, after a while, he’d stopped groaning. The horse, on the other hand, had never been groaning. It had been sitting there, starting to smell in the midday sun.

Aradia sat behind it and clutched her musket tightly to her chest. She’d done her best to clean the mud off the flint, but she wasn’t entirely sure it would go off. The mud tended to get into everything and even with the sun beating down and drying things off, it was still wet. Wet that seeped into powder and ensured that it would only fizzle out when she tried to get off that one, desperate shot.

Instead, she would play dead and hope to whatever terrible God still watched over them all that Her Imperious Condescension’s forces wouldn’t advance again. She could still hear them in the distance – the swell of a thousand-strong regiment marshalling at the end of the blood-soaked expanse known only as the Miller’s Field. Aradia wasn’t sure why it was called that. She wasn’t sure why the thought was even in her head as she waited there, tucked down into the muddy expanse and waiting for death to find her.

One way or another, it would – the pain in her leg where the musket-ball had torn its price in flesh still ached. The mud wasn’t helping – she’d tried her best to pack the wound with a strip torn from her uniform but it was barely adequate. At least she wasn’t bleeding to death… whether or not that was a mercy remained to be seen.

* * *

It was a week now that she’d been coming to the garden, with its high walls on two sides and perfumed air that she increasingly associated with the woman who sat there and read in the evenings. Without truly intending it, they had begun to establish a semblance of a routine. Aradia would arrive as the sun began its passage through the door of golden splendour and into the world of shadow. In those last few golden rays, Kanaya would sit and read to her.

“I can lend you the book, if you would like. I assume that you are a woman of letters – you spoke with such familiarity of the play when we first met.” Kanaya set her book down in her lap and smiled – Aradia looked away quickly so that this noble Italian lady couldn’t see the ruddy swell quickly building in her cheeks.

“You’re right… but I enjoy hearing you read aloud.” Aradia’s voice dropped as she spoke the next part – “Your voice is… pleasant.”

Kanaya smiled at her, her own cheeks glowing slightly in the waning light of the afternoon sun. “You flatter me, oh Lady of Spain.”

“Not so much… my parents fought for… they fought in the War of Occupation.” She shifted where she sat next to Kanaya and looked away again. “They didn’t want me joining the regiment, but… I did.”

She felt something brush her forearm and looked down to see Kanaya’s fingers touching her wrist. Her hands were soft – almost delicate – but they looked like they had strength in them. Aradia smiled at her and placed a hand over-top – her own fingers were considerably rougher, even two months clear of…

Even two months later.

“But you’ve not been fighting in any wars lately?” Kanaya’s tone was hard to place – a strange combination of inquisitive and concerned. “The things happening in the north – up near Austria… we’re safe here.”

Aradia shrugged and tried a smile that felt more theatrical than genuine. “I have other skills. I was raised to read and write quite well, and I have no small degree of skill with a ledger. I assisted the regimental quartermaster and I provide my services to several of the merchants in town.” She fell silent.

Kanaya leaned in toward her. “You prefer to live like this? I’m sure it’s less adventurous – sometimes I wonder what it’s like to be out there. Maybe… maybe I should’ve run off to join the Florentine Company or the Milanese – but it was such a long way and I had obligations here.” She sighed and looked off.

Aradia sat back. “No… you wouldn’t want that for yourself. I wouldn’t… pay it no mind, Lady of Naples.” The sound of the insects buzzing in the dwindling heat of the day was loud and heavy around her – she closed her eyes, letting the sound wash over and surround her.

* * *

The sound of insects buzzing in the sweltering heat of the day was loud and heavy around her. The mud was dried – caking to her skin and sticking to everything. She wasn’t even sure if she could fire the musket if she needed to. They hadn’t issued her a sword, but she had a long dagger for emergencies – it was still tucked securely into her belt. At least that was something. Aradia closed her eyes, letting the sound of the insects in the distance and the flies buzzing around the ripening horse carcass wash over her.

She couldn’t hear the sound of the enemy regiment in the distance. Aside from the sounds of nature, it had been quiet for some time. Cautiously, Aradia shifted in the half-dry mud – her leg burned as she moved but she forced herself through the pain and rolled over. Peering up over the body of the horse, she scanned the horizon.

Gone were the enemy banners and troops. The only thing she saw were the dots in the mud where her former comrades-in-arms had fallen. The field was all churned mud now – no doubt mixed with a fair quantity of blood as well. She was trying not to think about it.

The pain was so bad – she knew that if she didn’t get the wound cleaned out soon, it would fester and she would succumb to the wasting disease that so often claimed the lives of her fellow soldiers. But Aradia’s constitution was stronger than that – she gritted her teeth and forced herself to standing, wobbling as she surveyed the charnel house that this unknown field had become.

She knew the names of so many of them – people she had stood with. Eaten with. Fought with. Two she had made love to.

Now all dead – fallen to the earth from whence they came.

Her mouth was dry and she had nothing in her for tears, but Aradia felt her heart breaking all the same. She stumbled back, using the musket to prop herself up. There was a village nearby that she could go and tend her wounds. She knew the innkeeper there. Aradia had eaten there the night before with some of the others – spending a better chunk of their pay than they intended in exchange for the chance to feel normal for a night. She’d drunk more than she meant to – almost been late for muster in the morning. She’d ended up further back on the line.

The front line had gone down all at once. Her original place…

She tried not to think about it.

* * *

“Do you realize that you have been coming to my garden for almost a month now?”

Kanaya asked her, setting the book down. It was growing too dark to read anymore, but they’d developed the habit of sitting and talking long after the Sun made its way below the horizon. It was still pleasant enough – the air warm and dry and the breeze quiet and gentle.

Kanaya’s face was shadowed – there had been a pall over their conversation that whole evening and her voice had been listless while she read. Aradia sat next to her on a long stone bench in the garden – their usual spot in the last two weeks – and wondered what had happened.

“Lady of Spain… can I confide in you?” she asked, her voice barely audible even over the soft noises of the night. “Can I speak freely without you thinking ill of me?”

Aradia felt herself stiffen – her nerves immediately on edge even though she couldn’t tell why. But still – she had no reason to think Kanaya was ill-intentioned. “Of course, Lady of Naples.”

“Please… call me Kanaya,” she whispered.

“Very well, Kanaya. You may call me Aradia if you wish.”

“Okay… Aradia…” the flush in her face was visible even in the dim light of twilight. “I have received some distressing information today… all my sisters and both brothers were killed near Austria a week ago. The rider just made their rounds with the news today. My parents died long ago…” She sighed and bowed her head. “In truth, I am the last Maryam left to tend this place.”

“I am sorry.” Aradia reached out and placed a hand on Kanaya’s arm. The woman was crying, but it was so quiet Aradia could barely tell.

* * *

She was clean now and her wound was tended. It ached, but it was shallower than she thought. She lay in the inn’s bed and stared up at the ceiling. She’d nearly died out on that battlefield – lying in the stink of mud and foul water and decaying flesh. Everyone around her cut down, and she only spared through a happenstance of timing and fate.  
  
But she was alive, in the end. And all she could think…  
  
...was that she was free.

* * *

“The truth is… I do not… I do not know how to feel about this. I will miss them, and their death was tragic. But also… I never felt especially close to them and…” She took a deep breath, as if what she was going to say next required particular preparation. “I am free now. Truly free. No one will dispute my claim to this land or estate – there are no family heirs or next in line to take it from me.” She smiled and sobbed at the same time.

“Do you think less of me now, Lady of– Aradia. Do you think me a miserable wretch who exists only to serve her own selfish gain?” Kanaya turned away and pulled her arm from Aradia’s grasp.

“No…” Aradia muttered, leaning toward Kanaya. “I don’t think you a miserable wretch… or any sort of wretch. Rather charming, actually.”

Kanaya fidgeted and clasped her hands in front of her knees, smoothing out her dress. “You are strange, Aradia. You speak plainly and you wear the rough clothes of a common worker, but you are capable of insight and gentleness that I would never have expected. I find you… quite charming as well.”

It was strange to hear – because Aradia had spent so long denying that this was an experience she was allowed to have. “I’m sorry… I’m not used to this…”

“To what?” Kanaya reached over and grasped Aradia’s hand. “To being called charming?”

Her face felt hot as she stammered out her response. “No… well, yes. But… to be soft. To be gentle. It feels very foreign at times. Even now… as if the war followed me even to this far-away land.”

She shifted, leaning into Kanaya now. “I wonder sometimes if I’ll ever go back to being the girl I was… before everything.”

The voice that responded was close to her ear – Kanaya had turned to face her directly and her lips were inches away. “I do not believe that we can ever return to who we once were. I do not believe that is something we should seek.” She leaned in. “Rather that we seek to live as who we have become… and who we want to be.”

Aradia felt those lips brush close – the warm breath was tickling the hair at the base of her neck. And part of this was strange to her. Part of her felt like turning away and walking out – like giving into the vague sense that she didn’t deserve to be comfortable and running away from all of this. But, in truth, that part of her had died on a battlefield north of Bolzano.

July 17th, 1721. That was the day she’d died… and been given a second chance to live.

She leaned in and a pair of soft lips kissed her neck, lingering for a moment and leaving the faintest tingling trace of sensation behind in their wake. Aradia closed her eyes.

“I think I’m falling in love with you.”

“That is a tragedy then, we’ve only just met.” There was a playful edge to Kanaya’s voice.

“We’ve known each other for a month now.”

Aradia turned and opened her eyes to see Kanaya looking at her. Her eyes were a deep gray-green – the color of storm clouds at sunset. Aradia swallowed heavily – she didn’t want to return to her room in town that night.

“You are correct. The time has gone by so quickly.” She smiled. “I would very much like to continue to grow acquainted with you. Perhaps more intimately than before.”

Aradia blushed. “You barely know me. Besides, I’ve… I’m not the hero from some Homeric epic. I can’t sleep well – I dream about what I’ve done. I… I get up and pace in the small hours, disturbing everyone!”

She shrugged and her smile broadened. “That is fine – Odysseus was a scoundrel.”

Aradia noticed that Kanaya’s lips were now very close to her own. “I don’t deserve to be happy, Kanaya.”

But Kanaya didn’t move back – didn’t draw away from her with a look of disdain. Didn’t tell her to go from this place and never return.

Instead, Kanaya kissed her.

And when it ended, Kanaya smiled at her. “I do not believe that to be the truth.”

“I… have to return to my room for the night. It will grow dark soon.” She was flushed and she didn’t want to go, but there was no way this could possibly be real. After everything? It couldn’t be happening.

“You are welcome to stay for the evening, if you wish. Or several days. Or indefinitely, if you wish. I have several guest chambers… as well as a comfortable bed of my own if you would prefer to avail yourself of that.”

“That is very forward of you,” Aradia muttered. She didn’t want to admit out loud how strongly the suggestion appealed to her.

Kanaya shrugged and smiled at her. “And yet the offer remains open for as long as you want to consider it.” She leaned in again and kissed Aradia on the cheek. “I have begun to harbor a strong affection for you, Lady of Spain.”

All around, the sounds of the twilight hours pressed in – the soft buzz of the insects and the calls of the birds making their roost before darkness fell in totality. The scented breeze blew warm though her hair, whispering that she need not live bound to the past forever. There was, perhaps, life yet to be found here – so far from that grim field north of Bolzano.

“I am saying that I am falling in love with you as well, Aradia.”

Aradia raised a hand and gently cupped Kanaya’s chin, drawing her in closer. Once more, in that half-walled garden scented by the jasmine breeze, they kissed.

And for the first time in as long as she could remember, Aradia thought of nothing else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you very much for reading! If you enjoyed this story, check out my other work, including the horror-themed AU [Palace of Cold and Silence](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27007573/chapters/65928637)!


End file.
